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ADDRESS 



Hon. WILLIAM C. LOVERING 



MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 31, 1897 



NORTON, MASS. 






BY TRANSFER. 

JUN 3 '910 



\ From Sumter to Appomattox marks a period in the history 
^ of our country that must forever challenge the interest of all 
mankind. Tlie most exalted principles of liberty and human- 
ity were on trial and at stake. All the world held its breath, 
and watched for the result of that fateful struggle between 
the people of this great American Nation. The circum- 
stances that led up to the War of Secession are familiar to 
all who have reached or passed middle life, but as that gen- 
eration is rapidly disappearing, and as an audience, like this 
to-day, is made up largely of those who have come on to the 
field since the Civil War, it may not be out of place to devote 
some of our time to a review of the history that led to that 
war. 

To those of us who lived through the terribly vivid scenes 
of the irrepressible conflict, it is difficult to realize that it 
has all passed into history, and is hardly more a reality to the 
3'outh of to-day than the War of the Revolution. And when, 
perchance, we hear the ill-informed child ask what is the 
difference between the War of the Revolution and the War 
of the Rebellion, our whole nature suffers a shock, and we 
have a new and striking illustration of the healing power of 
time, and of the forgetful ness that embalms one short gen- 
eration with oblivion. 

It is never agreeable to reflect that the lives we are living, 
the history we are making, and the real things that are hap- 
pening about us to-day, are so soon to be forgotten. The 
lessons of our Civil War were so full of import for us all, 
and had so much influence upon the human race, that it is 
fitting once a year, in the floral month of May, that we should 
meet together, heap garlands upon the graves of our nation's 
preservers, recall those days when liberty hung in the balance, 
and pledge our allegiance anew to our free American Republic. 

It may be said that the first seeds of the War of Secession 
were sown by the Declaration of Independence in 1775, 

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watered by the Articles of Confederation in 1777, and devel- 
oped by the Federal Constitution in 1787. No ranker weed or 
more noxious fungus ever grew in a nation's garden. 

No more serious or momentous task ever confronted any 
body of men, than was undertaken by those fifty-five represen- 
tatives who assembled in Convention in May, 1787, to revise 
the Articles of Confederation, and to draft a new Constitution 
for the union of the thirteen states. There was everything 
to prevent a consummation of such union, and to disrupt the 
feeling of interdependence that had sprung up under the 
Confederation. Indeed, so grave was the responsibility felt 
by every delegate, that even an atheist, who was a dis- 
tinguished member, suggested that the Convention be opened 
with prayer, and the only reason the suggestion was not 
adopted, was lest the people should be led to realize how 
desperate the cause really was. So long as the Colonies 
stood before a common foe, it mattered little how slender was 
the tie that bound them together. So long as Britain's arm 
was raised to enslave and oppress them they paid but little 
heed to internal or interstate differences. No price seemed 
too dear to pay for American liberty. But after the treat}' 
of peace was signed, and the foreign enemy had sailed away 
from our shores forever, our forefathers found themselves face 
to face, living under Articles of Confederation at once flimsy 
and indeterminate. The varied and diverse interests of the 
thirteen states found an early and vigorous expression in the 
Continental Congress and public assemblies. 

The thirteen states had thirteen different constitutions, 
each jealously guarding some peculiar and individual interest. 
It is not strange under the circumstances that the flames of 
popular feeling threatened to burst forth at any time and 
overthrow tlie government. 

The Continental Congress had practically no greater power 
than to recommend and entreat. It remained for each state 
to make requisitions and grant appropriations. 

It was legarded as more of an honor to be a representative 
in the State Legislature than a representative in Congiess. 

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There was really no National Government. It was simply 
a League of Sovereign States banded together for purposes 
offensive and defensive, and yet it was sufficient to carry our 
country through to a successful termination of the Revolu- 
tionary War. 

In the language of Washington, " Success had but afforded 
the United States the opportunity of becoming a respectable 
nation." Alexander Hamilton wrote as follows: " A nation 
without a National Government is an awful spectacle. The 
establishment of a Constitution in a time of profound peace, 
by the voluntary consent of the whole people, is a prodigy to 
the completion of which I look forward with trembling 
anxiety.'* 

So when the Convention assembled representing all of 
the thirteen states except Rhode Island, the work seemed 
well nigh hopeless. To smelt, mould, and weld all the dis- 
cordant elements into a complete and concordant Constitution 
was an undertaking worthy the wisest and truest patriots 
that ever lived. 

No state was willing to surrender any rights or privileges 
that it had hitherto enjoyed as a separate Commonwealth. 

Slavery had been forced upon the Colonies by British 
avarice, and when the war broke out, it existed in all of the 
states and was strongly entrenched in six of them, while in 
the other seven there had already grown up an antipathy to 
the institution, which never diminished nor lost any of its 
force until the final abolition of slavery in bloodshed. 

The African slave trade was in full force and was caiTied 
on under the law. Full recognition was demanded both of 
slavery and the slave trade. The Constitution thus became 
a patchwork of claims, concessions and compromises. Strong 
men and staunch patriots had labored with all their might to 
arrive at a safe and peaceful conclusion. They felt that they 
had done the best they could. Still in their minds was a 
lurking consciousness that there remained in the work a sup- 
pressed or hidden spark that might some day burst into flame 
.and threaten the existence of the Republic. 

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The Constitutional Convention assembled in May, 1787, 
and tinished its work in September of the same year. It 
adjourned to await the adoption of the Constitution by the 
State Conventions. 

By its own provision the Constitution was to be established 
when nine of the thirteen states should adopt it. Delaware, 
the smallest state in population in the Union, was the first to 
adopt it, Dec. 7th, 1787, and on June 21st, 1788, New Hamp- 
shire, the ninth state, had accepted it. So that it became the 
great Common Law of the land from that date. The other 
states ratified it in due time, the last to signify its adherence 
being the smallest state in territory, Rhode Island, May 29th, 
1790. 

It was a critical period in the history of the country during 
those months in which the adoption of the Constitution hung 
in the balance. Predictions were freely made that it would 
never be accepted by the states, or, if accepted, it would fail 
of its purpose. 

The French Revolution had broken out. The mob had 
beaten down the Bastile. France was drifting into a sea of 
human blood. The reign of terror had begun. What won- 
der then that Americans hesitated to commit themselves and 
their fortunes to a great general government of the people, 
whose interests were so diverse and whose homes lay in 
latitudes so wide apart. 

In 1790 the United States emerged from a semi-chaotic 
existence to that of a fuU-fledged nation. At first the Con- 
gress of the United States addressed itself to the financial 
questions that were the legacy of the Continental Congress. 
For some years it found enough in these and in our foreign 
relations to occupy its attentions and best thoughts. 

France, our Revolutionary ally, had sought to exact her 
reward for services rendered, and harrassed our commerce 
whenever she could. Napoleon viewed us with a jealous eye, 
and there is little doubt that had he succeeded in establishing 
an empire in Europe he would have sought conquests ia 
America. 

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England arrogantly maintained her right to impress our 
seamen into her service, and it took a second war to establish 
our independence on the high seas as well as on land. 

All questions that touched upon State Rights were care- 
fully avoided. These only forced themselves upon public 
attention when new states came knocking at the door of 
Congress for admission to the Union. 

In 1819 Missouri was admitted after a sharp contest in 
Congress as to whether she would have the right to hold 
slaves or not. Nearly all of the Northern Representatives 
voted No, and the Southern Representatives Yes. The result 
was what was known as the Missouri Compromise, which was 
enacted in 1820, permitting slavery in Missouri, but restrict- 
ing it thereafter to territory lying south of latitude 36*^ 30". 
From the beginning violent disagreements had been averted 
by a provision to admit two states at the same time, one 
Southern Slave State and one Northern Free State. 

But the day came when this equilibrium was disturbed. 
More Northern than Southern territories became qualified 
for statehood. 

In 1854 the Missouri Compromise was practically repealed 
by what is known as the Kansas and Nebraska Act, which 
provided that slavery might exist in the territory if it was so 
decided by a vote of the people. From this moment political 
history was made rapidly. 

The Ship of State was encountering a stormy sea which 
was fast driving her upon the rocks of civil strife. So long 
as the Democratic party was in power, no overt act was com- 
mitted and any outbreak was delayed. 

The slave power was aggressive and would broke no 
restraint. It was jealous of any move that contemplated 
interfence with slavery, or that tended to restrict its extension. 

In 1856 the Republican party came into existence, whose 
chief tenet was opposition to the extension of slaverj^. There 
and then was the gage thrown down, and the South was not 
slow to take it up. 

The new party failed to elect its president in its first cam- 

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paign. Had it been successful there is little doubt that the 
war would have come a few years earlier, and there is also 
a chance that it would have been a year or two shorter, as 
the four years of Mr. Buchanan's administration were utilized 
to put the South into fighting order, thereby giving them an 
unequal advantage at the start. 

The Republican party, however, lost none of its political 
advantage, but rather gained in its influence with the people, 
so that in 1860 it elected its president. 

This was the signal for the uprising that had long been 
contemplated by the slave states, which were determined 
never to submit to Republican rule. 

The day that the Republican party was born, the South 
took fright. It foresaw at once that the restriction of Slavery 
meant its final extinction, and from that moment it left no 
stone unturned to undermine the power of the National Gov- 
ernment. A weak president, who, in his paradoxical two-fold 
manifesto, declared that secession was unconstitutional, but 
that coercion was illegal, and a Secretar}' of War, who was 
a traitor to his heart's core, readily lent themselves to the 
fiendish purposes of the nation's destroyers. 

Northern armories were stripped of their arms and muni- 
tions. Northern forts were dismantled and left defenceless. 
So that when the war broke out, it was found that the South 
was nearly a year ahead of the North in its armaments and 
general preparedness for active hostilities. 

There is no more pathetic chapter in the liistory of our 
country then that which relates the events between the elect- 
ion of Lincoln in November. 1860, and his Inauguration in 
March, 1861. Pity that it should ever be written. It would 
be a farce if it were not a tragedy. There was treachery 
in high places among avowed secessionists. A truckling and 
cowering spirit on the part of Congress. Offers of con- 
cessions on all hands to the slave power which were met only 
with derision. Cowards, dough-faces and mercenaries, were 
the epithets applied to Northerners. All this was endured 
with a desire to avoid an open rupture, but it was not, — as 

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has been frequently represented, — in a pusilanimous spirit, for 
in a moment as if by magic all was changed. 

One gray morning in April, 1861, the news came flashing 
over the wires up from the South, that the rebels had opened 
fire on Fort Sumter. All the patriotic blood was roused to 
action. The spirit of Lexington, Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, 
Saratoga, and Trenton, animated the whole North. 

Party spirit vanished and all moved forward as with one 
accord to meet the rebellious host. In a few short hours, the 
tramp of loyal legions was heard throughout the North. The 
keynote was sounded by General Dix, whose brave words 
rang out as with a trumpet tone, and were taken up and 
repeated from one end of the country to the other, " If any 
man hauls down the American Flag, shoot him on the spot." 

When the arch traitor Ruffin pulled the lanyard on that 
first gun in Charlestown harbor, he brought down about his 
ears the very bulwark of Slavery, — State rights, — and sealed 
forever its doom on the American Continent. That he after- 
wards perished by his own hand rather than live under the 
American Flag, shows the intensity of bitterness that existed 
in the hearts of secessionists. 

How the people flew to arms is perhaps better remembered 
than any particular events or battles of the war. To those 
who took part there was nothing more impressive than the 
answer to that first call to arms. 

Men who had left home in the morning with no thought of 
war, shouldered their muskets and never saw their homes 
again. 

Men left their business, their professions, their studies, their 
work of every kind, dropped their books and tools right 
where they were, took up the sword and musket, and never 
put off their uniforms nor laid down their arms until the sur- 
render of Lee at Appomattox. 

Some went forth as to a holiday, but most of them went 
with a firm purpose to put down the rebellion and save the 
country, or to perish in the attempt. 

No thought of danger, no thought of privation, no thought 



of pa}^ held them back. Only one thought tugged at their 
heartstrings, the leaving of wife, children, mother and sister, 
but God be praised, the women, never less brave than the 
men, bade their dear ones Godspeed, and then turned to take 
up the doubled work of their home life, with a new prayer 
upon their lips, that a Merciful Providence would spare their 
own. 

The object and the limit of an address like this, makes it 
in vain to recall the particular incidents of the Civil War, or 
to go over the battles by land and sea that won renown for 
our arms, and peace and liberty for all our people. Honor 
and glory belong alike to those who carried the sword and the 
musket. 

In New York City is reared a monument which has just 
been dedicated with fitting ceremony, and entombs the ashes 
of our great leader, the invincible, the magnanimous, the 
silent warrior, who won victory, and even admiration from his 
enemies. 

Though this monument marks a great hero's grave and 
stands for achievements unsurpassed in the world's history, it 
is none the less a memorial sacred to those brave men who 
stood with him at Fort Donelson, at Chattanooga, at Vicks- 
burg, and in the Wilderness. Could his silent lips have 
spoken on the day of dedication, would they not have said, 
" Remember my comrades too" ? 

Our own Boston to-day is paying tribute to that brave 
white officer who led to war a regiment of colored comrades, 
though he knew that they and he would be shining marks for 
rebel bullets. They stood together, they fell together, they 
were buried together, and their bones mingled in a conmion 
grave. 

No armored knight, in mail of steel, ever went forth to meet 
a foe so panoplied with all that was true and loyal, as Col. 
Robert G. Shaw, who perished with his sable comrades about 
liim. Though black their skins in the sight of men, their 
souls are white in the sight of God. 

My comrades, it has been your privilege to relight and 

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keep burning the real camp fires of American liberty. It was 
not alone that you saved the Union and freed the slave, it was 
not alone that you established the greatest and freest govern- 
ment in all the world. You did even more than this. By your 
ready answer to a country's call, by your sacrifice of yourselves, 
by your privations and sufferings, and by your many deeds 
of valor, you showed to the nation and the world what 
a patriot was willing to do. Had your efforts been futile, the 
spirit with which you made them was worth the price and 
terrible experience of the war. 

So when the historian is summing up the cost and results 
of the war, let not this be left out of the account ; that your 
prompt and patriotic action not only saved the country, but 
gave an example of devotion that will not be forgotten and 
will forever be a safeguard against another internal war. 

When honest pensioners are flounted as looters of the United 
States Treasury, let this be their answer, " It was not for 
money that we entered the service of our Country. When 
we enlisted, we never asked what we were to receive. We 
sprang to the Nations's defence, not asking for money, not 
asking even for gratitude." 

The impulse was patriotism. An}?^ other spirit than the 
pure love of country would have led to disaster. Had the 
war been a mercenary undertaking, it would have been a 
failure. All the money in the world could not bu}^ patriotism, 
and without that all would have been lost. 

The lesson of to-day will be wasjted upon us and we shall 
fail to realize its full significance if we do not contemplate 
the results of the war in their relation to our whole country. 

The contest was ended nearly a generation ago and there 
is nothing to be gained by fighting its battles over again. 

This is a day when the noblest emotions should be allowed 
free play. 

There is nothing more precious to us than that which we 
have bought with our blood. Yes, and with our blood we 
have bought a free country, free from Lake to Gulf, from 
Ocean to Ocean, free, every foot of it, and it is ours, all ours. 

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And so I say let us love it all, not one State alone, not one 
section alone. That is not patriotism in its full sense. To 
love our country is to love it all. 

This is the sentiment I would rouse within your breasts to- 
day. This is the patriotism that I would stir within you. 
Not that you should love your own State or home the less. 
A poltroon indeed is he who will not stand by his own. But 
this may only be when our own is assailed. 

There is no longer any reason why we should array State 
against State, or section against section. The plague spot of 
human slavery is wiped from our escutcheon and all the state- 
craft in the world cannot restore it. 

The country is no longer living a lie before God and man. 
All men are born free and equal. There is no National crime 
that all the States do not share alike. 

Therefore, now, no good reason exists why any State should 
withhold the hand of friendship from all its neighbors. 
Should not the old State of Massachusetts be always foremost 
with the olive. 

While we love our Commonwealth and believe in her, let 
us not be blinded with vain glory. Let us bear in mind that 
we are not without sin. Let us not forget that slavery once 
dwelt within our borders, and was abolished only because it 
was found unprofitable. Let us not forget that here we 
once burned people alive on the superstitious charge of 
witchcraft. 

We can only know what real independence and liberty are 
by obeying, ourselves, the first law of liberty, to respect the 
rights of others. 

American liberty exists only by the grace of God and the 
good will and consent of the people. It is not gifted with 
immortality. It is not an -^gis set up over heads to which 
we may tly for protection. It may be torn down at any 
moment and dragged in the dust. It ma}'^ be violated and 
humiliated in the very citadel of its defenders. 

The foundation stone of liberty lies in the character of the 
people themselves, in that spirit of selflessness that counts the 

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rights of the whole people as paramount to those of the 
individual, in that willingness to subordinate all personal 
ambitions to the rights of others. 

This is the essential virtue of patriotism and is stimulated 
into activity whenever our common rights are in peril from 
within or without. 

It has been said that " To love our country with ardor, we 
must sometimes have fears for its safety, our affections will be 
exalted in its distress and our self esteem will glow in the 
contemplation of its glory." 

When we shall all realize and understand that the sover- 
eignty^ of the people ruling the people, means that every 
citizen shall act toward his neighbor upon the principles of 
absolute truth, and justice, and humanity, then shall we know 
the best form of government, and the highest state of civili- 
zation of which mankind is capable. Tlien shall one Church, 
one Creed, and one Commandment suffice for all. Then will 
earth be raised toward Heaven, and Heaven be brought to 
earth. 

When the great clock of the universe shall point to the 
millennial hour, and the everlasting bells of time shall ring 
in that glorious morrow, then may it be found that all the 
people of this American Republic shall stand ready to hail the 
Messenger, who shall once more proclaim, " Peace on earth, 
good will toward men." 



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